There's no secret that work is under way at one of the most prominent houses at the top of Historic Ninth Street Hill, one of Lafayette's most prominent neighborhoods.

Signs of remodeling tear-out have been in plain sight in the past three weeks at the entrance to State Street. Remnants of old trim and scrapped baseboards in the side yard. Power tools left on the porch where they were last used, and likely will be used before the afternoon is through. And parked near the garage on Ninth Street, a trailer-size, red bin with yellow letters spelling out "Winski."

It's only natural that people want to get a look inside -- inside a house that the director of the Wabash Valley Trust for Historic Preservation says, without hesitation or flinching, is a landmark.

"Everybody seems to know about it, even people from out of town, once you get to talking," said Paul Schueler, the Wabash Valley Trust executive director. "Everyone knows: It's that yellow house at the point."

In just one hour on Tuesday afternoon, two people walk through the white pillars on the porch of the brick, Greek revival giant to ask if they can poke around. One is asking for scrap metal. The other just wants to look around, always wanted to check out the solitary house.

Not today, says Brian Dekker, a Lafayette attorney who bought the house at 907 State St. from Howard Ayers Jr. in December and is looking to move in sometime this spring. In good time, everyone will have a chance to look around, he assures the visitors.

"It's like that all the time," Dekker said, taking a break Tuesday afternoon from stripping walls in an upstairs room. "I get it. I know why they're excited. People come up all the time and shake my hand and tell me, 'Thank you.' They've really embraced this."

But really, the story of this second chance for the Ayers Mansion -- completed in the 1860s, largely vacant since 1989 and on the Wabash Valley Trust's most endangered structures list for the past decade -- is less about embracing as it is about letting go.

And Howard Ayers Jr. says it took a long time to let go. He's finally ready.

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"This is looking like it will be a happy story," said Ed Chosnek, Lafayette's city attorney, who has been dogging the property for the past five years and who helped broker a deal between Ayers and Dekker. "It didn't start that way. It started with nasty (code violation) letters and all that. ...

"But in this case, the city doesn't have $200,000 to (condemn the house and) do that kind of work. And the city clearly didn't want to tear it down, obviously. ... (The task) was given to me, and I was hoping to get Howard, gently, to do what was best for everyone."

Letting go of the house where he grew up was never going to be easy for Ayers. He said there's too much family history wrapped up in the place. And for the longest time, he harbored dreams -- unrealistic and unrequited ones that lingered too long, he says now -- of coming back, swinging a hammer, shoring up walls and fixing the roof so he could toss the two blue kiddie pools collecting water in upstairs bedrooms.

"That was a plan," Ayers said. "Maybe not a good plan. But it was a plan."

But if he wasn't going to do it, he said, he wasn't ready to just let the house go to some house-flipping investor or apartment-dividing landlord. He even passed on an offer from Dekker, who stopped by one day five or six years ago when he saw activity during one of Ayers' visits.

"They might as well have torn it down then," Ayers said of plans for apartments or money-making notions. "This is a home first. It was my family's home. You don't just give that away."

Ayers sat amid the construction dust, contemplating whether to take a plaque with the family coat of arms that Dekker found, as he recited the history of the house. His story largely squares with what's known through the Wabash Valley Trust, newspaper accounts and public records.

James Wallace, a Lafayette cabinet maker, built the house. He also owned land to the east, which later was developed as the Wallace Triangle subdivision. The house was remodeled in the 1890s by Loomis Heston, who added porches, the distinctive bay window that faces Ninth Street and the balustrade features.

The house changed hands another time before 1942, when Col. Howard Ayers Sr. -- an engineer assigned to Purdue during World War II -- bought the home for his family, figuring he'd be serving in a long war. Ayers said he was 10 when the family moved in. His father spent the war as a member of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's staff. And Col. Ayers spent years after the war helping to rebuild utilities and the power industry in occupied Japan.

Col. Ayers retired in 1965, living at 907 State St. until his death in April 1986. His wife, Sarah, died in October 1989.

That was the last time anyone lived full time at the Ayers Mansion. But so much of the Col. and Mrs. Ayers' furniture, housewares, solid state TVs, artwork and table settings remained in place that it was as if no one had left -- even as dust gathered and the ceilings caved under the weight of a leaking roof. Today, the basement is still stacked with long wooden crates, stamped with "Col. H. Ayers Clothes" or Japanese lettering, that were shipped back from Japan after the war.

On Tuesday, Joan Ayers, Howard Ayers Jr.'s wife, helped pack up heirloom dishes still stored in the house for a trip back to their home in Shelbyville. Dekker and friends helped wrap an intricate folding partition, decorated with jade and inlaid ivory, and loaded it into the Ayers' van.

"Some things," Ayers says pointing at the dishes, but taking a second to look around broad, main floor rooms stripped for rebirth, "you want to hang on to."

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Sandy Lahr has a file on the Wallace-Ayers Mansion. She's hung onto the first letter she received from the city engineer's office, sent in 2001, urging Howard Ayers Jr. to mind apparent exterior code violations and a potentially weakening structure. That was a decade ago.

But the inside of the home was always a bit of a mystery, beyond the recollection of longtime Ninth Street Hill residents who had visited when Col. and Mrs. Ayers were alive, and the imaginations of those who lived nearby now. What wasn't a mystery, at least in Lahr's mind, was that the house was in serious trouble and was growing into a neighborhood liability as each vacant year passed.

"We were just watching it deteriorate," said Lahr, who lives about a block away at the corner of Ninth and Kossuth streets. "It's right up there with the Ball Mansion for us in the neighborhood. When you go up the hill, it's right there. So phenomenal. And it was going to be lost before long."

A group from the Ninth Street Hill Neighborhood started pressing the city in earnest about five years ago, according to Chosnek. Scaffolding that once promised work was being done stood for months on end without action.

"Let's just say they were upset," Chosnek said. "I met with Howard to work with him to come to a decision about what to do with the house. He wasn't obstinate. He just didn't want to let go. ... What was important to the city was to save the house."

Chosnek said he had permission from Ayers to show the house but that offers didn't meet the owner's approval. Years passed until pieces of conversation from Dekker -- "I always thought that house was so great, and I told people that," Dekker said -- were connected with Chosnek's search.

Dekker, a member of the Wabash Valley Trust board, had recently finished a renovation project on a North Seventh Street house where he lives now. Chosnek arranged a dinner for Howard and Joan Ayers at Dekker's home, where they got a look at the sort of historic restoration he could do.

"I knew it almost right away," Ayers said. "Brian was our guy. I wanted him to have it."

The deal was closed Dec. 30.

"I was glad Howard and Brian could get together. And I'm glad the neighbors had patience to let me do what needed to happen," Chosnek said. "And there's your happy ending."

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For Dekker, the ending is more of a beginning.

There's a lot to do in the house, with its 11 rooms, 4,348 square feet and features that include a curving staircase, carved banisters and six fireplaces. Small rooms common in older homes dominate the second floor. They are the opposite of the sprawling main floor, where one room is introduced to the next by wide entries.

Windows have leaded glass, chandeliers hang in the main rooms and original gas/electric sconces are on several bedroom walls. The parts of the house that aren't brick are framed with black walnut timber. Dekker said he plans to put on a new roof as soon as he can get three or four good, clear days in a row.

The purchase price was $78,000. Dekker says he believes he'll need to put another $50,000 into it, provided he does about 75 percent of the work. If it's more than that, he says, he says he's prepared and believes he'll be OK on the investment. The house, as it stood before the sale, was assessed at $261,000, according to Tippecanoe County property records. As recently as 2006, it was assessed as high as $321,700.

He thinks he'll have it in good enough shape to move in within 60 days.

For the Wabash Valley Trust, the work comes after a tough year for local preservationists. The Pythian Home on South 18th Street, another endangered structure list fixture, was torn down by Lafayette School Corp. in October. And two 19th century houses on Columbia Street were demolished last fall to make way for a playground for St. Mary School. Saving something on the trust's endangered list is a big win.

For now, Dekker's taking plaster back to lath, stripping vintage wallpaper, and stepping around heirlooms and family memorabilia Ayers is clearing out. That, and answering knocks at the door that bear the request: May I look around?

"Believe me, I'll schedule an open house when it's ready," Dekker said. "People are going to want to see this place."

Bangert is a columnist with the Journal & Courier. Contact him at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter @davebangert.